


In memoriam.

by Anonymous



Category: Persona 5
Genre: And very complicated feelings, M/M, Making Out, Noir Atmosphere, PWP, Post-Canon Fix-It, Smut, Switching, Very vague Royal spoilers, with some plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:41:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24395200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: A man stands atop the cliff, a creature born from shadow. Grey irises gleam like the edge of a knife. They haven't changed one bit."I came here to die" Goro says with no particular solemnity. His voice echoes in the embrace of trees that surrounds them.Joker, more alike to a nightborne creature than ever, turns around, black curls like splashes of ink darker than the shadow itself. "I've been waiting for you."
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 8
Kudos: 82
Collections: Anonymous





	In memoriam.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saikowrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saikowrites/gifts), [Lia404](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lia404/gifts).



> If someone told me that I would have been able to write noir Shuake smut in the span of a day thanks to a cheesy prompt born from a random generator, I would have thought of it as a fever dream. But here I am with this thing that wouldn't have been possible without the patient encouragement and advice I received from both Aki_Saiko and Lia404. The merit of keeping me from sticking my head into the sand like an ostrich out of embarrassment goes to them, too.
> 
> As for the story, it's set five years after the ending of Royal but can be read as a... normal? post-canon fix-it, but... smutty? I probably suck at writing porn, but here goes nothing!

_ Let darkness keep her raven gloss _

_ Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss  
  
T _ _ or dance with death, to beat the ground _ _  
_ _  
Than that the victor hours should scorn _

_ The long result of love, and boast _

_ "Behold the man that loved and lost _

_ But all he was is overworn."  
_ _  
_ _ [In Memoriam, XXXIV - Lord Tennyson] _

  
  


Death is an intrinsic part of the circle of life. 

All beings that are born unto this world slowly but inevitably walk towards it, some finding themselves on a route shorter than expected, some on a long and winding road. The path he's taken is still shrouded in mystery, but death has caressed him enough times with its bony hands to leave its scent on him, stuck on his skin like the suffocating humidity of the summer night. 

The shape of irregular branches filled with small deep green leaves stands tall in the moonlight, thin out to lead him from hard, barren earth to soft grass. A small clearing overhangs on the vast surface of a lake. The water, smooth black velvet, glares at him with its bright white eye. 

A man stands atop the cliff, a creature born from shadow. Grey irises gleam like the edge of a knife. They haven't changed one bit. 

"I came here to die" Goro says with no particular solemnity. His voice echoes in the embrace of trees that surrounds them.

Joker, more alike to a nightborne creature than ever, turns around, black curls like splashes of ink darker than the shadow itself. "I've been waiting for you."

"How long has it been?" The trivial kind of conversation that he hates. He takes a step forward. 

" _ It's not 'trivial'!"  _

"Five years, more or less." A low baritone, slightly deeper than the voice of his faded memories. "Did you take care of everything?" 

He nods briefly. Below him the lake is a never-ending expanse of darkness. "The corpse is ready, my acquaintances did a fine job with the disguise. Nobody will be able to recognize it by the time it will be found." 

"Sae-san and Takemi-san have already been alerted by Alibaba and received the sample for the DNA test." A defiant smirk. "In a few days 'Akechi Goro' will be dead."

A chuckle bubbles up wry and low from his chest. "I guess we're even now, Joker. Although I suppose nothing can really make up for what happened in the interrogation room."

"We can't erase the past, even if it's painful. We learned it the hard way." Joker steps forward and the moon paints the hardened edges of his face in chiaroscuro. They're no longer the kids pitted against each other by the will of a false god. "What are you going to do now, Crow?" 

Nostalgic nicknames of a time that has been lost. A past that can't be retrieved and a future that might not exist. What is it they have left? "Since 'Akechi Goro' has died, I will live in the shadow to tear down the remnants of that bastard's conspiracy. Alibaba will help me erase the tracks." 

"So this is farewell." A faint breath tickles his lips.

"Yes" he breathes out. His fingertips trace the edge of a chin, smooth and soft. "It's farewell."

"I will remember him." Joker's voice cracks, a fracture so small that no one else would notice. "I will remember Akechi Goro."

Their mouths crash together and bring with them the melancholy of a cold winter night, the taste of curry and coffee on Ren's tongue. They're not eighteen anymore and yet they still fall into each other with ease, lost in the quiet desperation of the gliding of their tongues and the unbearable warmth of a solid body pressed against another. 

"Where will you go now?" Ren pants against his ear. Burning lips suckle gently at his lobe. A shiver rolls slow and languid down his spine. 

"I…" Small bites on his neck, he swallows a groan. "I still have some hideouts in Tokyo."

His hands slip under Ren's black polo, the skin of his toned stomach feverish under his palm. They're not in a dusty attic anymore, his existence a quantum particle oscillating between two mutually excluding statuses. There won't be another time to simply be 'Akechi Goro'. He rolls a nipple in his fingers and Ren arches his back to stifle a moan against his mouth. He drinks it and tastes sweet victory on the tongue that caresses his own.

After all this time Ren is still Ren. 

Long fingers hook his belt loops and his body is yanked down to meet with soft flesh. Slate eyes gaze at him from below like he’s something that can’t go unseen, a sight far more worthy of their attention than the vast sea of stars above.    
  
“Let me join you” Ren says, voice unwavering as the water beyond the cliff. Warm palms settle on his hips, even warmer lips on his own. Slow and deep, the gentle prick of teeth on skin and the soothing caress of tongues to defy relativity and slow time.    
  
A knee pushes between his legs, forces him to bite his lips to let the pain ground him in front of pleasure. He has no right to rob Ren of his life once again, of the wings that he’s envied and admired for so long. His apparent death will be a liberation for both of them.   
  
“You can’t.” His lips latch onto the soft skin of Ren’s pale neck. A pulsing heat against the flat of his tongue, the hitching rise and fall of a chest pressed to his own, a faint moan from bloody red lips. Everything about Ren incarnates life, the freedom of existing without being bound by anything, of letting oneself be shaped by pain and pleasure alike. As the opposing side of that coin they belong to, he takes the grim reaper, his friend of old, by the hand and gains freedom from being dead to the world. He sighs. “That bastard’s men keep their tabs on you as well. You’d only be a hindrance.”   
  
Their legs slot together with the familiar tingling of pleasure crawling under his skin. Ren, half-hard against his knee, grinds himself slowly, his breath tickling his cheek in irregular puffs. A sheen of sweat glistens on his forehead. “You… “ A closed-lipped moan, hands that fist the sides of his shirt. “You know that I’m good at feigning death.”   
  
“Not enough to fool me for long.” He follows Ren's pace and pleasant heat pools low in his stomach, asks for friction and pressure. They’ll only get more hurt, dig the knife in that still bleeding wound they inflicted on each other on that cold night five years before. This has to end, or the medicine will be too bitter to swallow but the echo of Ren's words silences the warning voice in his head. 

_ Do you really want to follow me to the depths of hell?  _

His back meets the ground and the faint smell of grass tickles his nostrils. Ren straddles his hips and leans over to pin his wrists with his hands. His skin burns with the lingering touch, with the ache that spread from his groin like fire to set his nerves alight. Steel eyes framed by inky curls become quicksilver falling into the darkness of wide pupils, look at him with silent commitment to plasm every single molecule of his body into tangible existence. Akechi Goro will be dead at the rise of dawn, but  _ he’s _ alive, with the uncertainty of the future hanging above his head like Damocles’ sword.   
  
A small intake of breath. “Then, let me die with you.”   
  
Ren unbuckles his belt with the deftness of a true thief, makes his breath hitch with the touch of soft, cool fingers on his aching dick, slowly strokes him to full hardness with pleasure that twists his guts. His fingers fumble with the button of Ren’s jeans, grasp at his slipping coherence to take both of them in his hand. A gasp, hands that claw desperately at his sweat-soaked shirt. Ren is painfully warm and pulsing with vitality but still chooses him, the one who walks on the thin thread that is the boundary between life and death.    
  


The distant rumble of thunder. 

  
The black polo drops to the ground. Ren’s torso is lithe, pale as the moon’s reflection on the water, toned muscles painted by evanescent shadows. He studies the form of his sides with hungry palms that have them press into his touch, skin feverish and unscathed despite the grueling battles they fought, suckles on a nipple to draw the curve of his spine accompanying a low, breathy moan. But a creature of the night never truly yields. Ren is a shapeshifter that lets itself be molded by other people’s desires to obtain what he wants, but bares them both to their naked bones and flesh under a roaring sky, no ‘give and take’ between them.

  
Fresh rain falls down, soothes the heat of Ren’s embrace, too tender yet unyielding, the burn of their cocks slowly rubbed in his hand, the pain of nails digging into his back but doesn’t stop Ren’s foolish resolution to remember him. Accepting painful experiences is a fundamental part of shaping one’s personality and he’s masochist enough to let Ren sear himself into his body and do the same in return with vicious tenaciousness, the promise of the gauntlet he’s thrown still unfulfilled.   
  


A finger slowly enters him and has his back arch. He sinks his teeth in the tender flesh of the joint between Ren’s neck and shoulder, tastes sweat and soap to leave a mark and bask in the soft gasp that mingles with the quiet sound of the rain. How fitting for the man whose name is a sanctuary of stormy skies and obstinate flowers. A second finger, the pain of a deep stretch. Ren’s mouth searches his own with gentle desperation, their words of farewell still bitter on the tip of his tongue. Life and death can’t be together, they can only send each other gifts to fill the gap between them. Fingers curl inside of him and steal a moan from his lips.    
  
He’s not his eighteen-years old self anymore, intent on leaving proof of his existence with a challenge in his voice the night before the end of the world. But Ren sinks in him, slow and torturous and sets his body alight. Thick lashes flutter on slate irises, swollen lips part ever so slightly. Silver rivulets of water drip from dark curls painted on white skin. Ren gazes at him with that light that possessed his eyes in front of a treasure enshrined in the depths of a Palace. 

Patches of starry sky gaze down from a curtain of gray. He bites down a snarl. "Don't look at me like you're fucking for the first time in five years" he growls. 

"Don't worry, I kept myself in exercise." A nostalgic hint of playfulness with serious eyes. His legs hook around a thin waist and Ren grasps his shoulders. "I wonder about you, though. This is the second last time before you die, after all."

He grits his teeth and swallows thickly. The word 'farewell' echoes in his mind. "If you have time to think about trivial things you should use it to fuck me, instead."

Ren nods and slides out of him to the tip to push slowly inside until their hips slot. His breath dies in his lungs with a hitch, hands fly in soft, wet curls, tug to get a moan. He meets his pushes halfway, languid and deep like the jazz music they used to listen to when they were younger, paints the pale canvas of Ren's skin with bruises and bites and relishes into the way the name that will sink into the depths of the lake rolls on his tongue.   
  
“ _ Goro _ ” Ren breathes and sinks into him with a roll of hips that tightens the knot in his guts. After the rain his body _ burns _ .

He pulls away with the slight discomfort of emptiness and pushes his weight forward. His knees touch on the wet grass to cradle bony hips between them. A glint of understanding shines in dazed eyes and he guides Ren’s tip inside of him. The sinking is slow, turns the heat into his stomach into a tense thread on the verge of snapping, but a pair of arms circles his neck and drags him down. A cold forehead against his own, breaths that tickle his lips.   
  
_ This is the last time. _

  
Ren thrusts up, quick and shallow, follows the heartbeat fluttering in his chest like wings of a hummingbird. On the verge of becoming nothing more than a nameless shadow, life and death fall into a desperate embrace and make him  _ alive.  _ The name that escapes from Ren’s lips is an ode to an existence that burned out fast and bright and is finally free to take new shape. The thread snaps under the blade of sharp shears.   
  
“ _ Ren! _ ”   
  


Time and space blur. Death welcomes him in its sweet, sweet embrace.   
  
  


§

  
  
Dawn spreads its rosy fingers from beyond the mountains’ ridge and paints in gold and emeralds the unmoving surface of the lake. The smell of grass and soil fills the air under warm rays, intensified by the nightly shower. A new day arises.   
  
A body sinks and distorts beyond the water, a blotch of indiscernible colors under a crystalline surface. On the edge of the cliff, Ren stands stark naked against the verdant slope, grey irises turned transparent by the light of the rising sun that pierces through white clouds. He turns around and strides forward.   
  
“That of ‘Akechi Goro’ isn’t the only body they will find.” Ren kneels on the fresh grass to straddle him, open and unbidden in the absence of his masks. “Amamiya Ren tragically took his life together with him.”   
  
Goro curls his fingers on the sharp ridges of Ren’s hips and guides him down. He’s tight and warmer than the sun itself. He closes his eyes with a smile and lets the subtle current of pleasure course through his limbs and curl his toes. “I see, Dazai Osamu and Yamazaki Tomie. Ever the brainless sentimental, aren’t you?”   
  
A palm presses against his naked chest with a sharp smirk between flushed cheeks. “The ex-leader of the infamous Phantom Thieves couldn’t possibly die in a way as dumb as shooting a bullet in his head.”   
  
“Sentimental  _ and _ exhibitionist.” He thrusts up with a sigh. It’s new and delightful, being inside Ren like this, under a morning sky and the vastness of a future that’s truly unknown spread in front of them. His body is light.

A life is a heavy burden to shed. Against the orange painted void above him, freedom spreads its wings, dives on the conspiracy that robbed them of it and screams of vengeance like a murder of crows. It’s ironic how the only way for him to live in a corrupt society is death.

  
“Your glove…” Ren rocks against him with quick sighs, his hair a dark halo against the dawn and their sweat soaked bodies joined in a ritual of rebirth. Long lashes flutter and reveal quicksilver irises unchanged in time. “I will keep it even in this life.”

  
Only positives are born from the mingling of two negations. Two dead people. A smirk. “It’s a challenge, then.”

**Author's Note:**

> A quick note for quick understanding; the famous Japanese writer Dazai Osamu died of suicide with his lover Yamazaki Tomie by drowning themselves into a lake.
> 
> If you wanna screech about Shuake, P5 or hold a grudge against potatoes you can find me on Twitter as @discqualia


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